1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to the field of formatting and transmitting audio data to a receiver. In particular, to a system, apparatus and method for transmitting continuous audio data.
2. Related Art
Electronic devices may be connected by a transport that enables one device to generate digital content and another device to render the digital content. For example, a DVD player can generate digital content and an audio/video (A/V) receiver can render the digital content when they are connected together. The DVD player sends audio data using the transport to the A/V receiver which renderers the audio data to attached speakers. A Toshiba Link (Toslink™) connection is a common transport for audio data streams and High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a common transport for both audio and video data streams.
Since the receiver is expected to properly render the digital content it is designed to ensure that data discontinuities in the transport do not cause audible or visual artifacts. A data discontinuity may be caused by a small pause in the transport, a data error in the transport or even a change in audio sampling rate. A typical receiver will ensure that the data discontinuity does not cause audible artifacts by muting the audio for a short duration at least until the data is known to be correct. Muting the audio allows the receiver to reduce the latency and protect against audible artifacts even though some content may not be rendered. The receiver may consider the start of data in the transport as a data discontinuity that may result in muting of the audio. Muting during the start of data in the transport may prevent the listener from hearing the initial audio content.